


the world will always be there (and so will i)

by eleomaciel



Category: 9-1-1 (TV), 9-1-1: Lone Star (TV 2020)
Genre: Bobby Nash is Evan "Buck" Buckley's Parent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s04e05 Buck Begins, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Post-Episode: s04e05 Buck Begins, fuck buck and maddie's parents is what i say
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29564868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleomaciel/pseuds/eleomaciel
Summary: Buck doesn’t say anything after his parents’ visit and his talk with Maddie because he doesn’t think it matters. Turns out he doesn't have to.ORBuck has meaningful conversations with someone other than his therapist because he deserves it and because I say so. Set after Buck Begins.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Bobby Nash, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Firehouse 118 Crew, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Henrietta "Hen" Wilson, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Maddie Buckley, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 236





	1. Hen

Buck doesn’t say anything after his parents’ visit and his talk with Maddie because he doesn’t think it matters. As far as everyone knows he’s forgiven Maddie and his parents and started putting the whole damn mess past him, and to be honest he finds it less draining to let everyone believe he’s okay. 

Otherwise, he’s put into the position of trying to prove his feelings as valid; his anger and grief and sensation of estrangement to everything and everyone he’s ever known, and the times he’s tried to do so have left him more exhausted than a bad day at work has ever done.

So he doesn’t say anything. It turns out he doesn’t have to.

He and Chim are fine, technically. Buck’s said what he knows Chim needs to hear for things to finally start going back to a somewhat okay place, but there’s still this tension stretching between them when they’re alone. 

Not when they’re working, because Buck would like to believe he’s grown enough as a person and a firefighter to not let something personal cloud his judgment to the point of being unprofessional with his team (too much. He’s still working on it, though, and right now that’s gotta count for something).

It’s him as much as Chim, with awkward small talk they never had to suffer through before in their years of friendship, obvious comments about weather or foods or animals or tv shows that Chim makes in hopes will entice Buck into one of those rants that make Buck  _ Buck,  _ but something’s broken between them that even if they get back into safe, friendly grounds might not ever be fixed. 

Someone usually had to cut him off when Buck got too into some monologue about what he’s read on a certain topic, and now the station has fallen into an eerie, peaceful quiet that feels all sorts of wrong, isn’t as tranquilizing as it should be because it means one of their own is actually very far from okay.

Hen witnesses one of these many uncomfortable encounters, watches Chim ask Buck about his weekend from the lounging area and her eyes stray from the book she’s reading for class when Buck shrugs out a noncommittal  _ nothing fancy _ over his shoulder as he cooks. Chim leaves for the gym soon enough and Hen waits until Buck’s eaten his breakfast, packed away the leftovers, and threw himself next to her on the couch with a book of his own to subtly begin her line of questioning.

“Boring day off, yesterday?” she asks as she flips a page, making a show of not focusing all her attention on Buck so he doesn’t feel crowded.

“Mmm?” he hums under his breath. Hen sees him look up to her from where he’d been searching for the page he was reading last from the corner of her eye. He sizes her up before deeming her as harmless. “Yeah. Slept in, missed a workout. Doc said to take it easy.”

“You holding up okay? Usually, it takes four of us to sit you down for a break,” she jokes, tone light to make sure he doesn’t perceive this as an attack or an offense. There have been too many self-deprecating comments coming out of his own mouth after his family secret was out for Hen to want to add more fuel to that fire. “I’m glad you’re taking it slow, though, you seemed out of it after the factory.”

“Yeah, well,” he shrugs again, posture stiffening against Hen’s forearm from where he’s leaning against her as Buck makes an effort to keep his tone light, nonchalant. “It was a long day. I think I’m entitled to a boring day off. ”

“Totally,” Hen risks a quick glance, shifting so they’re huddled closer together and Buck melts a little at the contact, leans into it all touch and affection starved. Hen feels her gut churning restlessly. It doesn’t take a professional therapist to notice how he didn’t answer her question. “How  _ are _ you feeling about all that, though?”

Buck just blinks at her like he wasn’t expecting the follow-up questionnaire, visibly swallows before clearing his throat. “Um, fine. Yeah, everything- everything’s fine. I talked to Maddie and my parents, they’re… They’re glad it’s all over now.”

“Is it?” she presses, finally dropping her book in her lap to gaze at him with what Karen calls her  _ momma’s here eyes _ . Buck reddens under them. “I mean, I’m glad you guys set things straight, but you know it’s okay if you feel like you need to keep talking about it, right? Even if it isn’t with them.”

“I already bother my therapist enough with this, Hen,” he jokes, but she can see his eyes wander to where the stairs leading down to the locker rooms are, silently plotting an escape as they speak. “You don’t have to worry about all of…”

He makes a nonsensical noise as if that could summarize all of his family’s baggage, still bothering him, making him squeamish around Chim and hesitant amongst the whole station. 

“I don’t worry because I have to, Buck,” Hen feels the urge to run a hand through his hair like she does to comfort her children when they think they did something wrong by just acting completely rational. She settles for a warm smile instead. “I worry because I care, because I love you. You’re my friend and I hate that you…”

“What?” he snaps, frowning warily at what might come next out of Hen’s mouth and she wonders what it is he’s expecting.  _ Act weird around Chim and make the rest of us uncomfortable, refuse to deal with your shit, and then put the team in danger because you’re distracted on a call, make working with you so much harder than it already is.  _ “That I what?”

“You hold it all in,” she admits, expression pensive while trying to figure out how to phrase it. She shifts so her body’s completely facing him without breaking physical contact, veering further but not pulling away. “Like you’d rather hurt until you burst than ask any of us for help.”

Buck doesn’t answer, stares down at his closed book, and holds it in barely trembling hands as if he’s pulling himself together as quickly as possible before it might be an inconvenience for Hen. 

She takes the plunge, reaches directly for one of his white-knuckled hands, and unfurls it so she’s holding it between her own. 

“Because you can. Ask,” she tells him and feels like she was kicked in the stomach when he looks up with bloodshot, wet eyes. Her grip tightens. “You can, Buck. We care so much about you and it kills us to see you hurting, to think that you don’t trust us enough to-”

“I do!” he exclaims before she’s even done, features suddenly desperate and a considerable change from how collected he was trying to appear a moment before. He moves so they’re both facing each other completely. “I do, Hen, I trust you all with my life-”

“That’s not what TK told me.”

Buck stills, anxious tremors and all.

“You…” he stutters. “You know about…”

“He thought I should,” she thinks about the young man pulling her away from the rest of the crews to thank her for what she did for her father while out in the field, and it came up like an afterthought. Like Buck believing his team, his friends wouldn’t bother trying to save his life was barely something worth mentioning. 

“It was just something I said,”  _ irrelevant _ , he seems to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from admitting. “You did come for me back at the factory, you showed up-”

“Were you expecting us to?” she asks softly. “When you decided to pull that tank off of Saleh all by yourself, did you know we were a few seconds behind you? Did you know we were coming to get you?”

“The sprinklers had already come online-”

“So you didn’t,” her lips tighten into a straight line. “You thought you’d save him yourself or die trying because you didn’t think we’d be there for you.”

“I trust you,” he says firmly, defensively, like protecting himself from an accusation Hen wasn’t trying to pin on him. “I trust you. I know you guys would be there for me if I asked, I just- I don’t. Some things I don’t mean for you guys to carry for me.”

“Not for you, Buck.  _ With _ you,” she wants to hold him by the shoulders and shake him loose until everything that’s bothering him comes out if not to solve it then just so he can say it. Just so he can have someone listen and take him seriously without him thinking it’s too much to ask. “You can barely spend two minutes in a room with Chim because you think you can’t talk about what’s weighing you down. I get you don’t feel comfortable talking to him about it but I’m here-”

“You’ve been friends with him for longer.”

“That doesn’t matter,” she cuts him off before he can go down that train of thought. She’s holding his hand so tightly and he doesn’t even flinch, takes in all the affection he can get before the next bell goes off. It’s a wonder how no one’s come in to interrupt them, the common area mirroring a ghost town. “It doesn’t matter that I’ve known him longer or that you might think I care about him more- which I don’t.”

Buck’s jaw is tight, clenching with the effort it takes to not burst into a sob. Tears are falling and Hen thinks he’s too distressed to notice.

“This isn’t about Chim being uncomfortable, Maddie and your parents being sad, it’s about you,” she goes to grip his knee, and Buck’s never been more focused on anything since she’s known him. “It’s your brother, your family, your feelings about it all. You’re allowed to come to us and ask for what you need. God, you shouldn’t even need to ask.”

He pushes himself away from her like he’s been burned, only to hide his face in his hands as his facade crumbles and he’s left crying against Hen, both her arms  _ finally  _ around him as she holds him to her and rakes her fingers through his hair. There are tears in her eyes, too, but she doesn’t cry. It’s not what he needs of her right now.

“Hen,” he says, voice broken and raw and small, smaller than Evan Buckley should ever force himself to be. “I’m so  _ angry. _ ”

Hen listens.


	2. Bobby

A week later Bobby calls him into his office at the end of the day, when his bag’s already slung over his shoulder and Eddie’s trying to rope him into movie night with Chris. 

Buck huffs to himself. As if he ever really had to ask. 

He turns to see Bobby on the second floor, looking big and authoritative before he retreats and Buck knows he’s not in trouble, has been trying really hard after the factory to keep himself in check and following orders to a T, but there’s still this underline of dread in his belly that isn’t going away despite how easy it should be to reassure himself that nothing’s wrong.

He’s talked about it a lot with Doctor Copperland, too. About how knowing he’s done everything right doesn’t stop him from thinking he’s failed somehow. How the panic attacks that come out to get him convince him he’s fucked something up and became a nuisance for everyone who had to deal with him that day.

_ I’m nothing but spare parts. Faulty ones, at that. _

But he’s working on it, he is. It seems that’s his go-to answer for everything, that he’s a work in progress and his therapist insists that’s better than many people do. She also tells him he doesn’t have to work on being okay with situations that make him feel uncomfortable, he shouldn’t have to force himself to bear it just so his completely understandable reactions aren’t seen as inconveniences to others.

Like he said, working on it.

Eddie’s hand is on his shoulder and he asks him if he wants him to wait, but Buck shakes his head and assures him it probably won’t take long, he’ll be a couple of minutes behind him in his jeep. Eddie frowns, they were planning on driving back together and having him stay the night so he didn’t have to worry about his car, but nods and squeezes once, lingering, before letting go.

Buck tries not to walk the steps into Bobby’s office like a child being sent to the principal’s even though he feels like one. He makes sure to square his shoulders and lift his head before knocking once, waiting until Bobby speaks up to let himself in. 

“All good, Cap?”

“Hey, I won’t keep you for long,” the older man assures him, taking off his reading glasses on top of the file he was working on and crossing to the other side of his desk before sitting on it, signaling Buck to follow on one of the nearby chairs. “I just wanted to check in. You’ve been doing a real good job these last few days, and I know the factory call might’ve been rough on you.”

“I’m,” he begins, before he cuts himself off and unconsciously turns his head towards the common area, remembering his conversation with Hen and how looser he’d felt after it. The warmth of that freedom, he’s afraid he’ll like it so much he’ll chase it until he becomes too addicted, but he can’t bear lying to Bobby right now. “Still figuring some stuff out.”

“You know everybody could’ve gotten lost inside that maze,” Bobby frowns, all captain-like and earnest. “That’s what the team’s for, we found you just in time and got the last worker out. It was as good as we could hope for most calls to go.”

“I know, I know,” he says, because he does. Hen’s words had an impact on him and most doubts of his team coming to his aid were done and settled, at least for the next few days. Anxiety is funny like that, it attacks whenever it wants to despite how okay your life might feel like at the moment. “I mean, I had a hard time in there but I know all things considered it all went okay. It’s just…”

Buck cuts himself off when he uses that last word. Doctor Copperland had told him there’s nothing minimal, nothing  _ just  _ about his traumas and feelings. Considering Buck’s been told he usually blows things out of proportion since before he learned how to speak, it’s like the word’s been tattooed into his brain, embedded in his vocabulary by force until he used it without flinching. 

He scowls to himself after a few moments of not being able to get his head straight, but when he looks at Bobby and expects impatience he sees open and welcoming curiosity and concern. That tightening in his belly softens somewhat, enough to give him the courage to continue.

“It’s been… tough with Chimney around,” Bobby seems to try to connect the dots all by himself, to which Buck hurries to keep talking. “Not, not  _ fighting  _ bad, or  _ I-can’t-work-with-you-around  _ bad, just. A little awkward, maybe? I, we talked about the whole secret thing after the factory, but it’s… I still don’t feel like I can pretend things are fine, you know?”

“You shouldn’t have to,” Bobby assures. “I know you worked things out with Maddie and your parents pretty quickly after you found out about your brother. It’s okay if you need a little more time to process things.”

“I’m- I promise it’s not affecting my work. Or my relationship with Chim,” Buck isn’t sure how much of the latter is true but at least it’s honest in the way that he hopes it won’t fracture permanently his friendship with his sister’s boyfriend, his niece’s dad. “I guess I… I’m not as okay with everything as I want to be.”

“And that’s normal,” Bobby says thoughtfully, then goes to sit beside him on another chair so he isn’t looking down at him from the desk. 

Buck didn’t think that was bothering him until he’s eye to eye with his Captain, feeling like he’s the equal Bobby’s always trying to convince him he is when they talk personal like this. “I’m glad you’re coming to me about this, Buck. I know sometimes you think keeping things to yourself until you get over them is the better choice-”

Buck would laugh if it weren’t so true. He really is more transparent than he tries to be.

“-but after the things you said the other day about yourself…” Bobby hesitates and Buck fights a shudder. 

He remembers them all too clearly, having repeated them to himself like a mantra all his way home from Maddie’s apartment after they talked about Daniel, before he told his friends the next day. He still isn’t sure where he’d found the courage to speak them out loud. Maybe he’d been too blinded by his anger to watch his mouth.

“I know,” he stops Bobby by putting up his hand. The older man nods and listens. “I know what I said and how it sounds and… I’m not gonna lie to you and say I didn’t mean it. After Maddie told me that the only purpose of me being born was to save a life of someone I didn’t even know and then failed… It kinda put into perspective all I thought I knew about myself.”

“Y’know, I left Philly because I was convinced my parents thought I wasn’t any good at anything,” if it didn’t involve college then it wasn’t worthy of their attention, even after his provisionary year with the Fire Department was over and he was officially a firefighter. “And I remember telling Maddie that I knew there was something in the world I was meant to do, I just hadn’t found it, yet.”

“Being a firefighter is the only thing that I’ve ever done in my life that has felt right,” he accentuates his point by hitting his hand on the table while Bobby watches, attentive. “Losing it made me scared enough to sue the department and realizing I was born to do one thing, and I couldn’t even do it right…”

“It makes you question everything,” Bobby says softly when Buck doesn’t know how to continue, the lump in his throat taking up too much space for him to speak over it. Bobby’s hand raises to his shoulder where Eddie’s was a couple of minutes earlier, and the tenderness on both their touches makes Buck’s bottom lip quiver. 

“Yeah,” his answer is soft, almost a whisper. Any louder and his voice will crack.

“I know it might not help as much as I mean for it to,” Bobby begins after a few moments of easy silence, ducking his head so their eyes meet as he speaks in a firm, soothing voice with no room for arguments. “But I’ll say it if you need to hear it from someone other than yourself or Maddie.”

A few months back Buck would’ve panicked at more than a few seconds without someone saying something, would feel the need to fill the silence by being loud and stupid so people would laugh. If they were laughing at him then at least they weren’t judging him, watching him as if he were nothing more than the useless boy his parents still made him feel well into adulthood.

“You are more than spare parts,” Bobby shakes him a little, out of his stupor and with a smile so soft and caring Buck feels like weeping. “Even when you don’t know yourself, Evan Buckley, I know exactly who you are.”

“You’re caring and brave and intelligent, almost to the point of disaster, sometimes,” Bobby’s smile widens somewhat, and Buck barely has time to laugh before he’s continuing. “But that’s what makes you so good, such a good friend, a perfect fit for this family. You might think you were only born to be your brother’s keeper but you grew up to become something exceptional.”

Bobby stands and Buck follows suit out of habit, finding himself being held upright only by his friend’s hands on him, knees buckling as he takes in his every word.

“I am so proud of who you are, Buck,” he says. “Despite everything that could’ve prevented you from thriving, you're here. You found your way home to us, to Maddie, to where you belong. I couldn’t ask anything more of a firefighter, a friend.”

“A son,” it leaves Buck dizzy with love and he collapses into the hug Bobby pulls him into. 

It’s not a secret that he first came into this station with so many flaws that his Captain would have fired him for and never look back. But the fact that Bobby took the time and effort and refused to give up on him even when everyone else already had was enough for Buck to idolize Bobby in a whole new light. A way that left him yearning for more than a Captain might have for his employer, and it had never been said, had lived in silence and in secret until right now.

His hands shake as they go to grip Bobby’s shirt, grip white-knuckled and tight. Bobby doesn’t pull away, doesn’t try to keep talking over Buck’s crying and just lets him weep, lets him soak in the words of admiration no one had given him while he was growing up, words no one thought he needed because he was always loud and bright and everything everyone expected of him before they got to meet him. 

He won’t make it in time for the movie at Eddie’s but it’s difficult to picture being anywhere else but here, in Bobby’s arms. The safest man Buck’s ever known and with more caring for him in his pinky finger than his parents ever had in their entire home. 

God, his parents.

They’ve talked it over, sure, but there’s still a part of him that needs to feel something other than indifference. He needs to be angry and to mourn the brother he didn’t know he had, the unconditional love he thought he had from his parents, the trust he thought he had with Maddie. Even though there’s still love there, still trust, something’s different. Cracks in the foundation he can’t just pretend aren’t there no matter how hard he tries to, can’t keep an even footing in uneven ground. 

“Bobby,” he tries, words caught up in his throat despite how determined he feels to get them out. “Bobby, you’re- Bobby, you gotta know-”

Amid all chaos there’s Bobby, his voice grounding Buck in moments of panic for him to think with a clear head. Bobby, gathering in his arms and pressing him to his side on the ambulance after getting out of the factory last week, looking down at him with so much relief, so much paternal affection Buck only then felt like he’d managed to escape the fire unscathed. He needs to say it.

He can’t say it, but Bobby knows, somehow. He grips him tighter, cradling one of his hands through his hair and the other one securely around his shoulders.

Yeah. Bobby always knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There goes Bobby's chapter! I didn't want to make it too sappy but I feel like this is an important conversation Buck should have with him, someone needs to show this boy some love.
> 
> I hope you enjoy and leave a comment if you're able, and I'll see you in a couple of days for the final chapter which is Eddie's :)

**Author's Note:**

> As much as I loved the flashbacks and intense scenes in Buck Begins, I felt like the writers missed several opportunities for everyone to just TALK to Buck about what he's feeling. But, hey, they say if you want something done right you gotta do it yourself, so here we are.
> 
> I hope you enjoy and the next chapter will be up within a couple of days! Next is Bobby and, the best for last, Eddie.


End file.
